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Blog Post #2

September 22, 2014 / Giovanni Girardi / 3 Comments

As you can see I choose the image of a human-tiger encounter, at what seems to be some sort of circus. The first thing I noticed was that the human who is most likely the tamer is giving the tiger a kiss. To our knowledge what’s typically known as a ferocious and dangerous animal, the tiger is accepting the kiss without any hesitation. Both the human and tiger appear to be reaching out for the peaceful gesture. This isn’t how a tiger would act in the wild, which makes sense that my next observations of the picture told me what it did. There is a black cage surrounding the two, with a blackened background, but a spotlight being shined onto the two. Clearly this is a circus and the tiger has been trained to preform at the humans command. The last thing I recognized as I closely examined the photo was the whip behind the humans back. The tiger is trained well enough to kiss the human but there is still a form of superiority represented by the whip. It may also serve as a division between the two species.

Before reading John Berger’s “Why Look at Animals?” I would have viewed this image as harmless. It seems like there is a good relationship between the human and the tiger. The tiger must like the human enough to share a kiss with him. I also wouldn’t have seen the wrong doing to the species of Tigers in performances like such. I would have deemed this circus as entertaining for majority of humans before reading Berger.

Now that I have read Berger’s essay, I can say that images like this one is not all that meets the eye when we look at interesting animals like the Tiger. I don’t agree that humans should be putting animals of any species in zoos or circuses. It is only hurting the species. Berger’s essay tells us the vast history of human and animal relationships. As you may or may not know, tigers are an endangered species. Humans have felt the need to use Tigers for several different reasons, and barely any are to the species benefit. According to Berger “The commercial exploitation of certain species (bison, tigers, reindeer) has rendered them almost extinct. Such wild life as remains is increasingly confined to nation parks and game reserves” (p. 13). If we care about tigers or any commercialized animals we find so much interest in, we must not interfere with their ways of living, because they won’t be around much longer for us to admire.

Sources for post:

Berger, John. “Why Look At Animals?” About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Print.

“Dragons Circus Review.” The Peanuts Gang. Web. 22 Sept. 2014

Michael Pestel Talk

September 21, 2014 / Sonia Bhala / 1 Comment

I recently attended a talk given by artist Micheal Pestel. Pestel’s work is based largely on appreciating the birds in our lives that we often take for granted. His work also carries messages about the problems of bird extinction and how humans have a diminished relationship with nature. In his talk, Pestel discussed how birds helped him combine his love of music and art. He said that “to you they are birds, but to me they are voices in the forest.” By stating this, he was trying to show that he had a strong relationship with birds. By referring to them as voices, they were no longer considered animals and thus no longer considered second-class citizens of the Earth. He then emulated their voices by using several different flutes to make bird sounds.

Pestel’s views often align with Berger’s. For example, Pestel mentioned in his talk that three things killed the passenger pigeon: the locomotive, the telegraph, and the gun. He stated that these man-made inventions will now forever carry the shadow of causing a mass extinction. Berger showed a similar disdain for the Industrial Revolution and its consequences in his novel About Looking when he wrote that “the 19th century, in western Europe and North America, saw the beginning of a process, today being completed by 20th century corporate capitalism, by which every tradition which has previously mediated between man and nature was broken” (3). Pestel mentioned that we stopped treating the world as our tribal ancestors did and believes that we have lost our relationship with nature because of the printed word. He thinks that we can regain the lost voices of animals by transforming our own language and own experience. He calls this “listening in with our mouths.” Although Pestel did not mention any specific ways that we can transform our language to help us understand animals more, one way that I think we can do so is by eliminating the human/animal binary from our language. We can do this by not lumping all non-human animals into the one category “animal” because this categorization promotes a view of self vs. other in which one must be inherently superior as opposed to viewing other creatures as equals living together harmoniously on Earth.

References:

Berger, John. About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Print.

Pestel, Michael. “Brown Bag Artist’s talk: Michael Pestel: Requiem, Ectopistes, Migratorius.” Lafayette College. Williams Center of the Arts, Easton, PA. 17 Sept. 2014. Guest Lecture.

Introduction

September 21, 2014 / Christopher Kelly / 0 Comments

My name is Christopher. I live in a small beach town in New Jersey with my two sisters and mom. I also have two cats that my family adopted from a summer camp and have had more pet fish than I can count. I am a member of the Lafayette Ice hockey team and therefore spend a lot of my time either practicing or playing, but when I’m not on the ice I enjoy film making and watching English Premiere League Soccer.

At Lafayette I am a Film and Media Studies major and hope to one day be a screenwriter/director for half hour variety shows like The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. I think that working in the television industry would be incredibly rewarding because as a filmmaker you have the power to create stories that can bring joy to others, which is a perk that very few jobs have.

Apart from filmmaking, my other passions include outdoor activities like wake boarding, fishing, and sailing. My favorite places to do these activities is Lake Placid, New York, which many know as the site of the 1980 Miracle on Ice Olympic Hockey game. My family owns a house there and we spend a great deal of time every summer in this Adirondack getaway. One of the reasons I like Lake Placid is that it has an abundances of mountains, lakes, and wilderness so there is something to all year around.

By taking this class I am hoping to improve my writing skills and learn more about how we as a society value animals.

NIH Funds Controversial Animal Experiments

September 18, 2014 / Bianca Falbo / 3 Comments

Another interesting animal controversy in the news:

The studies, which began in 2007, attempt to model some of the environmental risk factors associated with human mental illness, such as parental neglect and childhood abuse or trauma, in an effort to understand how they interact with genetic factors.

Methodologies used in the studies included separating baby monkeys from their mothers shortly after birth; sedating a mother in the baby’s presence to see how it responds when she loses consciousness; intentionally startling monkeys with sudden, loud noises; and subjecting the monkeys to invasive procedures such as spinal taps and intracranial administration of medications.

Who is the King of The Jungle?

September 17, 2014 / Nicholas Gurzynski / 3 Comments

The King of the jungle, and a human. A relationship a human shares with a lion is vastly rarer than that of a horse or a dog. Lions are cats, large cats with incredibly strong jaws and hunting prowess, but at the core, still a cat. Animals that were once powerful and primal hunters, have now become the many breeds we see today in species such as cats and dogs. The image shows a man kissing and hugging a lion whom he considers to be a friend of his. The story is that this individual spent years researching and playing with the lions, so they became familiarized with him and could recognize him. The embrace is oddly human as a hug is generally something we do when we love or care for another. A lion could bite a man twice and kill him, but the man trusts his relationship with the animal so much that he is defenseless and vulnerable. Species such as lions, panthers, wolves and other large predatory mammals are ancestors of the cute animals many of us call pets. It’s ironic to see species such as the Black Panther and Bengal Tiger nearing extinction as they are the remnant of a rich animal history that precede human existence. The saber-tooth tiger was more or less a larger lion with some tusks, but was a primary threat to early age men. Our discussions in class oftentimes force me to ponder how I look at my pets because it blows my mind that in a span of 2,000 years, we have domesticated and controlled a range of breeds and species to the point where many of us forget their evolutionary roots. Considering the teachings of Berger, applying the concept of dualism to animals is already putting ourselves above them in a sense. In areas such as Africa, large preserves and national parks have rare species in a large, but slightly maintained area of land. Natural selection and processes would injury these species, but humans would intervene to save them and tend to their injuries. At first consideration it doesn’t seem like a bad thing to do, but now factor in that these last few species are out of place.

The intrusion of man into these predators’ environments demonstrates that we cannot respect the boundary between man and nature at times. We recognize ourselves as individuals, and humans have a perception that supports the claim that humans are in our own eyes, superior. Whether it’s an anthropomorphism animals out of sympathy or miss-identifying lions as entertainment in zoos rather than hunting in the safari, humans are overly engrossed and invested in attempting to satisfy ourselves as more intelligent beings. Berger and Walker have advanced my knowledge of the multitude of perspectives on animals and our relationships, but I have been firm in my views prior to reading their work. Swimming with White Sharks and seeing them hunt from a young age solidified my desire to see nature as it should be, without human interaction. I knew that as I got older I would learn more about factors such as the economic benefits of animals and their instrumental value, but it often times is touch to gauge how I feel about my relationships with animals I encounter. Berger’s claim that our communication with animals is hindered by a lack of language, which is true. What about a hug from a lion? Where does that fall on a scale of physical representation of emotions? I don’t know exactly what is going through the lion’s mind, but it’s evident that it’s a personalized relationship between a man and a 500 pound cat. Other behavioral qualities of lions can be read at the following URL: Lion Behavioral Traits and Qualities.

Toronto Blue Jays criticized for bringing wild animals into their clubhouse

September 17, 2014 / Bianca Falbo / 0 Comments

This story showed up in my FB feed this morning and I thought some of you might be interested, especially in how the various constituencies have framed their positions. Here’s another article in which the team’s General Manager speaks up.

A Whale of A Problem

September 16, 2014 / Christopher Kelly / 3 Comments

My image was inspired by Abigail’s post about competitive horseracing and focuses on the use of animals for entertainment. Like Abigail, I wanted to pick an image that represents a human-animal relationship in which the human is in control so I chose a picture of a Sea World trainer performing tricks with her orca. At first glance my image seems very innocent because it shows a happy trainer standing on the nose of an orca entertaining a crowd, but when you analyze this image it becomes clear that the trainers that interact with their orcas have more of a master-slave relationship rather than a performer-assistant rapport.

The first thing that I noticed in my image is that the trainer is on top of the whale, which insinuates that she has dominance over the animal. This subtle feature of the image signifies that the trainer has control over the whale’s actions and that the orca is submitting to her. When I first saw a Sea World show I didn’t think much of this relationship because I figured doing tricks for a crowd was more rewarding than swimming aimlessly in the wild, but after reading the Walker text I’ve become disenchanted with this practice. In the Walker text the author compares horse breeding to the practice of slavery by pointing out that in each case the victim is being held captive to serve a single purpose and then is discarded when that purpose has been fulfilled (Regan 185). In the picture I chose the orca is also used for a single practice, which is entertainment, and then is sent away once it becomes too old to serve that purpose. The CNN Documentary film Blackfish provides more insight about this practice by explaining that the orcas that are used in SeaWorld shows are usually bred in captivity for the sole purpose of growing up to be a part of the SeaWorld shows (Blackfish). In “Am I Blue” Walker would make a similar argument by insisting that Blue is being used for the sole purpose of creating a desirable offspring that the breeders can then sell for a high price. In both scenarios the animal in question is being exploited for the economic benefit of others and is no longer seen as valuable once its duties have been performed.

Using whales for entertainment may not seem like a horrible thing but when you learn the facts, like that they spend their whole lives in a small aquatic cage and perform several hours a day, you realize that they are essentially slaves that are used for our amusement. The whales that are being used in these shows are no different from many horses that are used for breeding in the sense that they are taken from the wild against their will and are forced to perform a task for the benefit of others.

Another reading that I had of this image was that it seemed to really embody the dualism that Berger talks about in the reading. Here is an organization whose mission statement is to, “Advance the global understanding of killer whales, and educate and inspire conversation efforts to protect those in the wild,” yet the way that they’re “inspiring conservation efforts” is putting animals into bodies of water that are way smaller than the ones found in their natural habitat (Blue World Project). I think there is an incredible amount of irony in this practice because if you were truly dedicated to educating and conserving you would teach people about whales in their natural habitat and not take them from their home and place them in an artificial sea. I understand that SeaWorld is a business that uses their shows to educate as well as entertain, but I think that those who train and use whales in shows are failing to see the psychological ramifications that their actions are having on the wellbeing of these whales.

Work Cited

1. Berger, John. About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Print.

2.Blackfish. Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Magnolia Pictures, 2013. DVD.

3. “Blue World Project.” Blue World Project. Sea World Parks and Entertainment Inc., 5 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

4. Regan, Tom, and Andrew Linzey. Other Nations: Animals in Modern Literature. Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2010. Print.

Blot Post #2 Looking into an enslaved monkey’s eyes

September 16, 2014 / Jixuan Zhang / 3 Comments

Blog Post #2 Looking into an enslaved monkey’s eyes

I chose an image from Wikipedia that is a good representation to the modern human-animal relationship. In the picture, a man and a monkey are on the street. The man with a bowl in his hand is begging for money. The really shocking thing about this image is that the man is also holding a rope that surrounds a monkey’s neck. Obviously, the man is leading the monkey. There is smile on the man’s face. The monkey appears to be suffering because he is clenching his fist around the rope. This picture represents a modernized slavery. The only difference is that this is human enslaving animal not human enslaving human.

In Berger’s essay “Why look at animals?” John Berger discusses the enslavement of animals, he quoted Buffo in his work, “ To the same degree as man has raised himself above the state of nature, animals have fallen below it: conquered and turned into slaves”. In this image, the man is at a higher level than the animal. Perhaps the man is being mistreated in real life; he is living at the bottom of human society. However, he could easily vent his anger on the monkey. Mistreating the monkey makes the man feel satisfied that there is always something that underneath him. As Berger says, “They are creatures of their owner’s way of life, the pet completes him”. The monkey is a testimony to the dark side of humanity: how human is willing to scarify another species to fulfill their own satisfaction.

Also the reasons why the man in the picture wants to bring a monkey when begging are worth exploiting. Sadly, the street where the man is begging with the monkey is just a few miles away from my home and I have seen beggars with monkeys more the once in China. Normally, the man trained the monkey to do some tricks or maybe just made the money to make the same begging gesture. Some pedestrians might find the monkey “cute” or “funny” and give the man some money. To the man, the monkey’s value is purely instrumental. The monkey is just served as a tool to make money for the man. The intrinsic value of the monkey is being neglected completely. In Alice Walker’s essay “Am I blue?” she talked about how human has forgotten animal’s right completely, “there are those who never once have even considered animals’ rights: those who has been taught that animals actually want to be used and abused by us”. The reason why this kind of begging is alive not only comes from the man who abuses the animal, but also comes from the indifference to the mistreatment to the animal from the whole society. The whole society is marginalizing animal.

Sources for the post:

“Shanghai-monkey” by F3rn4nd0 – File: Shanghai man with monkey.jpg. Via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shanghai-monkey.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Shanghai-monkey.jpg

John Berger. “About Looking”. Pantheon Books, 1980 print. Sept 10 2014

Walker, Alice. “Am I Blue.” Human Rights Anthology. Ed. Lee Peralta. New York: Columbia U. Press, 1995. 438-445. Sept 16 2014

No Longer Man’s Best Friend

September 15, 2014 / Alexander Lehmann / 0 Comments

The Far Side

Although my time in class has not dramatically affected my attitudes and views regarding human-animal relationships, it has encouraged me to put much more time and effort into thinking about and analyzing the source of these views and their underlying components. When I came across a Far Side comic drawn by cartoonist Gary Larson, I found myself searching for details that would tell me more about what Larson was attempting to say about human-animal relationships.

The comic depicts a domestic scene with a couple eating dinner in their living room and the family dog on the floor nearby. The dog is highly anthropomorphized, standing upright on two legs and wearing an angry expression that would be more at home on a human face than a canine one. The dog is wielding a revolver pistol and aiming it directly at his owner, and the caption reads, “’Hey, bucko…I’m through begging.’” Although they are being held up by their dog over food, neither human in the image appears at all concerned. The man looks at the dog with a blank expression and his mouth full of food, while his wife seated opposite him doesn’t even give the dog any heed.

Before joining this class, I would have found the image moderately amusing and moved on to other ventures. However, now that I have spent time in class thinking in much more depth about human-animal relationships, this seems to be an exaggerated example of the impact that exploitation at the hands of humans can have on animal psyche. The dog is clearly fed up with his low-ranking position in the household and his use as a novelty as a pet. Blue, the horse in Alice Walker’s Am I Blue?, experiences the same feelings as he is left alone in his field until he is wanted for human purposes, be them riding or breeding. Even when under these circumstances, Blue is treated as an object and not as a living being since the children who ride him, “ride furiously for ten or fifteen minutes, then get off, slap Blue on the flanks, and not be seen again for a month or more.” His mate is also taken away immediately after he impregnates her, hammering home the point that Blue is simply seen as a tool by his owners. Like Gary Larson’s dog, Blue also becomes fed up with this and snaps after his mate is removed, wearing, “the look of disgust with human beings, with life; the look of hatred.” Both the Far Side comic and Am I Blue? Are making the point that when their intrinsic value is ignored in favor of their instrumental value, irreversibile damage is done to the human-animal relationship.

Sources for the Post:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/f3/e6/f8/f3e6f810211343108914aa115b1c37b4.jpg

Regan, Tom, and Alice Walker. “Am I Blue?” Other Nations: Animals in Modern Literature. Waco, Tex.: Baylor UP, 2010. 182-187. Print.

The Smart Pig

September 13, 2014 / Michael Galperin / 2 Comments

smart_pig

Since reading Berger’s and Walker’s passages in class, I cannot say that I have a radically new and enlightened view on how animals are depicted. However, I can say that those passages help me view these depictions in a slightly new way by shedding new light. Viewing the way farm animals are treated has always been an issue important to me. Nowadays, producers and distributors of meat products have tried there best to unanthropomorphism the connections between animals and humans. They focus on engraving only the instrumental value of animals in the minds of the consumer, as opposed to the intrinsic values.

Seeing images like the one posted above, is not the most common image of a pig that most see. This picture depicts what looks like a very intelligent pig. The pig is in a position similar to what the “quintessential librarian” looks like- glasses and posture together. The pig looks soft and clean. It even looks like the pig has a grin.

aimage Most would say that this image is what pops in ones head when one thinks of pigs. Now it isn’t a bad thing to associate pigs playing in mud, since it is natural for them. However, by reinforcing this image in ones head, one subconsciously propagates the stereotypes and prejudices society has instilled with pigs- which is that they are dumb, dirty, fat, and nasty.

Reading Berger has shown me the deviations, as a society, we have taken in our previously dualistic mindset. We used to treat animals with respect and value, respecting their intrinsic value and instrumental value at the same time (1). Today, we don’t even go that far in respecting them. Alice Walker makes a point in Am I Blue? where she opens conversation about the way we treat animals is similar to the way we treat minorities- for instance, the way white people treated black people during slavery in the United States. If one witnesses how a factory farm operates, one would be appalled in the treatments of the animals. You could equate the way the pigs and other animals are being treated to conditions slaves endured.

Most are not aware of the intelligence that pigs have. Hence why, the producers of the first image created the picture. They made the pig appear intelligent. They are tying to start a conversation to break down the common misconceptions society holds on the intellect of farm animals. Some scientists believe even that pigs are smarter than dogs, smarter than dolphins, smarter than 3-year-olds (2). So if in society we really choose the food we eat by its intelligence- we will not eat monkeys, dogs, cats, etc. due to their intellect but we will eat a cow, pig, and chicken because of their inferior intelligence-, I believe we will see many contradictions arising from scientific data on the actual intelligence of farm animals.

Now, I am not advocating that we all become vegetarians and completely cut out meat from our diets; however, I believe this quote sums up my thoughts quite well:

“If we’ve decided to eat pigs despite the fact that they are smart, should we not at least use the information that we have to make their lives as positive as possible up until the point when we decide, “Well now they’ve become food?”

Sources:

(1) Berger, John. “Why Look At Animals?” About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 7. Print.

(2) “Pigheaded: How Smart Are Swine?” Modern Farmer. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Sept. 2014.

(3) Walker, Alice. “Am I Blue?” Other Nations: Animals in Modern Literature. Ed. Tom Regan and Andrew Linzey. Waco, TX: Baylor UP, 2010. N. pag. Print.

Representing Animals